Daniel mumbled under his breath as he made his way to the bus stop that was situated near his house. He was silently sending his mother light curses for her extreme accusations. How could she refer to her son as a rapist? Whose mother does that?!
He was in an extremely good mood, but it all just had to be ruined by his mother with a pan to his head. He touch the part of his head where he was hit and felt a bump, causing a tear to fall down his eye. Never again in his life would he try to surprise her. NEVER!
He eventually sighed and sat on a bench close to the road. Although he was annoyed, he couldn't allow himself to stay annoyed, after all she was his mom and only parent. His dad went on a mission to a black gate and never came back. Later on, he was pronounced dead. The only reason he probably still had a mom was because she was an accountant, staying as far away from the battlefield as possible.
No matter how much he wanted to stay angry at her, he couldn't. With a defeated sigh, he brought out his phone and began texting Audrey, his one and only best friend. Not friends with benefits, by the way. But wouldn't it be nice to...
Quickly removing such atrocious thoughts from his head, he began texting her
Dan: Sup. How long will the bus take?
Audio: Not that long.
He decided to save her name as Audio because while he was saving her contact, the auto-correct changed the Aud to Audio and it was also kind of funny since the name actually matched her character. She was, without a doubt, a very loud person. They went to talk about various things from the weather to the political situation of West Kendall to the economic backlash the country was currently facing. Basically things that the mere insignificant, average person wouldn't talk about.
After talking about various arising crisis the country was facing for about 10 minutes, the bus finally arrived. It was the average bus with a few defense systems added to it for the students safety, after all, you don't know when or where a black gate would appear.
Stepping into the bus and locating his friend was very easy as he just had to walk in before his best friend began shouting his name.
"Daniel! Over here!"
He smiled as he looked at the angelic being beckoning him. He made his way, while trying to walk like a gentleman. Audrey chuckled at Daniel's antics. He noticed an oddity in the chuckle, but decided ignore it.
"You look beautiful as ever, dear madam." He made an exaggerated bow with one hand behind his back.
"I must say the same to you, dear gentleman." She held her head high and brought her chest out while extending her hand.
"Will you two just sit the down!!" A voice shouted from the back of the bus, clearly annoyed. Probably from jealousy. After all, who wouldn't be jealous of the both of them whenever they displayed how deep their friendship was?
"Why do you always have to be a fun sponge, Anders!" Audrey replied, before going back into charcter.
"With pleasure, your Grace." His voice oozed of an experience gentleman. He grab the hand, then brought it close to his lips before placing a kiss on it and taking a seat beside her.
"Boo!" A lot of students booed at the same time and began throwing squeeze papers at them.
The students behavior might have depicted some kind of animosity or jealous towards the two, but they weren't actually jealous or angry, they were just having fun. The two would openly display their affection as besties daily and as usual, they would get booed at. This was definitely not a form of expressing jealousy.
Pushing aside the noises coming from the other students, Daniel paid his full attention to Audrey. She was telling him about how a black gate opened close to where she lives and how her parents were among the people sent to deal with the black gate.
Right now, there was no way to close a black gate once it was opened. The only solution to stopping a country from being leveled from the appearance of a black gate was to kill all existing beasts coming out of the gate and then go into the gate and kill the beast close to the gate.
Without a means of closing the gates, a city or even the entire planet could be leveled if many black gates suddenly started appearing around the planet, but fortunately, not many gates appeared. In a country, only about 4 gates would appear and just these 4 gates alone has enough power to wipe out the country, if not handled seriously, causing a high demand for awakened soldiers and scientist or any occupation that could help close the gates.
Back to the two. According to Audrey, from the black gate, several unknown beasts, a stage above her parents we exiting the gates. Since there were no Awakened, at the stage, nearby, her parents decided to take it upon them, as their duties as citizens and soldiers of Kerr to help in defending the city.
This wasn't the first time her parents were deciding to put their lives on the line, so she developed a habit of hiding her worries behind a facade that she was alright. But of course, the facade couldn't fool her only best friend! He'd be better of dead if he couldn't spot a change in her behavior! That's how confident he was.
To determine the level an Awakened had, different stages of identification were created. Currently, there were only 5 known stages that had been discovered, each dependent on the amount of mana an Awakened could contain. Naturally, the amount of mana an Awakened can contain will determine their overall prowess. Some people could be born to never make it past the first stage and that is where they would remain till death.
The amount of mana contained within a person is not calculated using gram, kg, etc, instead it was measured based on the amount of time an Awakened could consecutively execute an Arcanum-based attack, the power of the attack and the complexity of the attack.
The 1st stage Awakened could consecutively use mana for a period of 4-5 hours unless physically exhausted or imbueding more than enough mana in an attack. Same thing for the 2nd stage Awakened, with the difference being that they can keep they can attack for 10 hours straight.
The 3rd stage Awakened were on another level, being able to use their Arcanum for 16-28 hours based on their mana usage.
The amount of time a 4th stage Awakened could consecutively use their Arcanum was unknown, since the only people that managed to reach that stage were the current Leaders of the 2 remaining continents and 7 other people who were altogether, a secretive bunch. The only known ability of a 4th stage Awakened was the natural ability to sense the amount of mana in a living being.
But this ability was not hyped since some people's Arcanum could already gauge the amount of mana in a Keeran and we're even able to store their Arcanum in a device using a specific Arcanum. This made calculating the amount of mana in a person easier.
Back to the present -or is it past?- Daniel was enjoying his time talking to Audrey as they sat down on a bench in a field, while eating their lunch. This time, the two teenagers were talking about how they found a particular girl to be quite interesting. Interesting would be an understatement to how Daniel found the girl to be well... endowed.
They were talking about how she had a nice curve -ahem-, when a hologram suddenly appeared in front of them.
[WARNING!! All students are to make their way to the Training Hall]
The message flashed its red letters, a couple of times before disappearing, but the sound of an emergency alarm continued ringing.
Audrey's and Daniel's faces sunk. This was going to be the first time, they were going to witness a beast invasion. While they were being taught how to be kill a beast, it didn't mean they knew how to kill a beast while not even being awakened! Hopefully, the school defenses would hold on and the whole thing would be resolved quickly.
"I think we should go back."
"I know that."
'The black gate is far from here, so how did the beasts get here?' He thought. The only explanation he could find was that Audrey's dad and the other Awakened had failed . Meaning that he as well as a lot of people were killed for the beasts to even get close to the school. Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, he kept quiet and focused on their safety. She probably knows.
There was the possibility of another black gate opening close to the school, but that would have been impossible since West Kendall already had 4 black gates, including the recently opened one.
The two immediately began running back into the building, alongside the other students. But since they sat farther than the rest, it was going to take them longer before they reached the building.
Finally entering the building, they appeared in a long hallway, with students far ahead of them. The two didn't even think of slowing down and continued running. There was a sudden rumble, followed by a mini earthquake and the sound of something hitting against the forcefield.
The earthquake forced them to fall to the ground, but they immediately picked themselves back up. Their hearts were beating so fast that it could burst out of their chest. With the sudden rumble, their sense of urgency increased twofold, bringing in a sense of fear in their mind. The flashing red lights only seemed to elevate the situation.
The sound of a growl coming from the entrance they entered from made the two of them halt their steps. Their bodies became drenched in sweat as they slowly turned to face the source.
At the entrance of the hallway, stood a 5 feet tall beast on it's 4 limbs. It had the head of a body and head of a bear, with the tail that looked like the body of a snake and an antenna, crowned on it's head. From it's underbelly, some kind of brown sand-like particles seemed to continuously fall without touching the ground and would return back to its body.
"The entrance is covered by a forcefield. Daniel, we need to keep running." Audrey held onto Daniel's hand.
Luckily for them, the entrance was covered by a forcefield that was meant to keep any kind of beast out, or so they thought. Almost as if it teleported, the beast passed through the forcefield with ease.
'A stage two beast!' -Beasts are only able to get Arcanums from stage two upwards.-
Audrey immediately pulled Daniel and started running. Daniel ran, while occasionally turning his head to look at the beast as it stood at the same spot. Suddenly a sense of dread overshadowed his thoughts.
On instincts, he pushed Audrey aside. He felt his arm get sliced in half. The pain was so excruciating that he wanted to scream. His body suddenly went limp and his vision darkened.